The Silence that Dare not Speak Its Name : Dis/continuities in Modes of Communication under and after State Socialism
Abstrakt
The notion of language as proposed by linguistic anthropology may be broad: it refers to any kind of meaningful social behavior, thus making silence an integral part of language and communication. It is indeed correct to claim there are differences in studying silences under a dictatorship and under a democratic regime - e. g., before and after the societal upheavals of 1989 in East Central Europe.
Yet I find the continuities in modes of communication deeper and more interesting than the discontinuities that have been often stressed by the victorious political classes of new regimes so many times. Once revealed, those hidden continuities tell us about anxieties, fears, frustrations, hopes and anger that have not been effectively addressed or solved by new political regime.
First, I shall introduce a distinction between vertical and horizontal modes of silence (and silencing) in everyday communication practices as they have occurred in Czech - and, to some degree, East German - public space. Second, I will show the aforementioned continuities in both vertical and horizontal silencing practices.
Following Brown and Gilman's distinction between pronouns of power and solidarity, I will distinguish between "silences of power and solidarity". Finally, inspired by Oscar Wild's discourse on "love that dare not speak its name", I shall argue that, under recent capitalism, the mightiest vertical silence of power dare not speak its name in public space - in an even stronger sense than it had been the case under state socialism before 1989.